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AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Well my wonderful readers. I'm an idiot. I had this chapter ready to post last night and you know what I did? I forgot to press the submit button. I'm so sorry that this author is dumb. But here we are, are you guys ready for another episode. There wasn't much in this episode Rowan could really do, so she'll be causing mischief in another way. I had a fun writing this one so I hope you guys enjoy it too. We've got a two parter episode next, and that one is going to be really cute. I promise. As always don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys on Wednesday!
Chapter 367
Lou loved days that started out like this.
Just him and Will in the kitchen, Will sitting at the table, Lou making the best pancakes in the world. And Will used to love these days too. He'd sit there with a big grin asking his dad for stories and when the pancakes. But those days were gone.
Now Will only cared about his phone. That and he had given Rowan Pierce the title of Pancake Master and Lou had never been so insulted before in his life.
Will had always called him the Pancake Master but just because Rowan made churro pancakes the last time Will was over at her house, all of a sudden, she was holding the title. He couldn't believe that she was actually better this whole pancake thing then his dad was.
So, Will was sitting there, his nose glue to his phone, while Lou went about making his own pancake master piece. This was going to blow Rowan Pierce and her churro pancakes right out of the water. He was so into what he was doing that he didn't even mind that Will wasn't paying attention to him at all.
"Rowan Pierce fancies herself as the pancake master but in a few minutes you're gonna find out that she had got nothing on your old man."
Will just kept on typing. Grover was basically having a conversation to himself. Wasn't going to stop him though.
"I call this… my pineapple-papaya-pancake surprise," he announced. Still nothing. "Needs another P: pecans. Next time, next time."
That got a little bit of a nod from his son but he also might have been nodding at his phone. He did that sometimes.
"You know I do all the cooking around here and your mother has the nerve to tell me the only thing that belongs in pancakes are blueberries and chocolate chips. Well, you know what I heard when she said that, don't you? A challenge."
Text tones were going off, Will was still typing away. Lou had to admit he was impressed. Will's little fingers were flying across the keyboard.
And Will was kind of listening because he hit him with an absent: "Right, right, uh… pancake challenge. I feel you."
"I tell you something, son. I really value these times we get to spend together, Will. Father and son, little man, big man. Breaking bread, bonding. Reminds me of the times I spend with your grandfather."
But Will wasn't listening again because he said: "Wow, epic fail."
Yeah, epic fail of Lou thinking he could be more important than his kid's phone.
"You know, last week I was reading an article in the Advertiser. It was talking about the effect that these screens have on young people. The director of neuroscience at UCLA said that the fix that you get form being on the phone all the time is equivalent to electronic cocaine and Chinese researchers call it "digital heroin". You know what I call it?" Lou got no answer but he was going to tell him anyway. "I call it: If you don't put that damn this down, I'm throwing it out the window."
Now that got Will's attention. He gave his father a little bit of a chastised hooded look and a lame ass: "Sorry."
He hadn't put it down though, it was still in his hands the screen was just turned away from him. "Down!" Lou ordered and Will put it face down onto the kitchen island's table top. "Thank you."
His son gave him a pained smile but Lou didn't care.
"Now we can spend some real quality family father and son time together."
And then the doorbell rang.
Will was immediately out of his seat. "Oh, dad, that's Grace. We're gonna walk together." Ah high school romances. Cute stuff. "So, I'll see you later."
Nope, not cute anymore.
"Wait, wait, where you going?" he cried. "By my clock you got another forty minutes before your first class. Why don't you go answer the door, get your little girlfriend, bring her into the kitchen, we'll sit down and have breakfast like civilized people."
He didn't like it but he did as he was told. Lou even let him sneak the phone away from the table, as if he wouldn't noticed.
However, the second he was gone, Lou took his phone out of his "Grill Sargent" apron and put it on video mode and turned it towards his skillet.
"Rowan Pierce. Do you hear that sizzling? Look at that golden brown deliciousness," he said in a taunting voice, he then turned the camera to him. "Beat that, pancake master. Eat your heart out, Ro!"
He sent the video off in a quick text and then hid his phone just as the two teens came in.
"Morning, Mr. Grover," Grace said happily.
"Well, good morning, Grace," Lou said back in an overly animated way. "How are you?"
"Good."
"You are just in time. Have a seat," he said as he went about plating the pancakes he had worked painstakingly hard on. "Sit down and relax and prepare to taste greatness."
He heard Will whisper: "Just humour him," which won him an amused chuckle from Grace.
And the two were typing away on their phones. To each other. They were literally less than two feet apart and they were texting each other. Probably about his pancakes.
Lou even watched them do it. They would send texts to one another and then the other would verbally respond.
Things like Really? and Seriously? This was really, seriously nuts!
"You know you two are sitting right next to each other, right?" but neither looked up from their phones. "Romeo and Juliet, put down the phones. Both of you."
They both looked up, but the phones stayed in their hands.
"These fluffy, light cakes of deliciousness deserve your full and undivided attention."
Grace almost put hers down but a different text tone went off on Grace's phone. Her smile widened immediately as she went to check it.
"Oh uh… Mr. Grover. Auntie Ro saw the video you sent her and Nahele said to tell you that Auntie Ro isn't going to respond to your video, but she did say that papaya and pineapples don't belong in pancakes. They belong on pancakes. She said if she was gonna do that, she'd make a maple brown sugar pancake, with vanilla yogurt instead of a milk. Then she'd put the pineapples and papaya on top."
"Oh now, see, that sound delicious, can we do that? Is Auntie Ro making those?"
"No, she made s'more pancakes. Which Nahele says had a marshmallow fluff and chocolatey center inside and crushed graham crackers mixed into the batter," she said. "Here look at the pictures."
He saw Will's mouth drop and Lou scowled.
"She is not the pancake master!"
But damn, that combo sounded good. Maybe she was the pancake master. But Lou wasn't going to give up the title that easily, not without a fight.
He was going to serve these kids his pancakes and knock Rowan's right out of the sky.
Both Grace and Will got a message at the same time. Will was first to react to it though.
"Oh my god! That's disgusting!"
Lou assumed he meant his pancakes and honestly his heart hurt thinking his kid could betray him like that.
"What are you talking about? You haven't even tried 'em yet!"
But then Grace said: "I think I'm gonna throw up." her eyes staying glue to her phone and he realized it was something on that screen that was freaking them out.
He put the two plates with the pancakes down. "Hang on. Give it up."
Will handed over his phone and Lou could see what it was. It was a man strung up upside down, he was in blue pants and a white shirt and he was covered in blood.
"Okay, you know what. Your Auntie Ro has some bake sale thing today at Nahele's school. I'mma call her and tell her to come pick you up okay?"
"And can you tell her to bring us some of those s'mores pancakes?" Will asked and Lou glared at him. "Or we'll just… take yours…"
"I'll text Nahele and see if she has left overs," Grace whispered and his son perked up. And just like that the photo was forgotten between the two of them.
Not for Lou though, he was going to have to go to work over this shit.
In his apron his phone chimed and it was a video from Rowan. She was cutting apart a chocolatey marshmallow pancake, the two just oozing out and Lou's mouth was watering. When the camera turned to Rowan, she was sitting in there in a diamond studded tiara.
"You can be the pancake master Grover cause I'm the pancake QUEEN!"
You know it was times at these that he hated that girl. He just couldn't tell McGarrett that.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
As requested, Rowan had picked up Grace and Will and took them off to school. She also had Nahele, but she had a reason for taking Nahele to school that day.
She had volunteered for the school bake sale fundraiser for several reasons. One, to show that she was involved in her kid's life in all aspects as the other mom's were starting to question. Two, because she was good baking and she could actually show off for this one. Three, because she wanted to show Nahele that she did care.
She could be a PTA mom. She could do this.
She had Nahele help her get all the boxes of baked goods she had made into the gym where the bake sale would be happening through out the day. But on the last box he stopped her from going in right away.
"Hey uh… mom… just… you know… if you hear anything… you know from the other moms… it's not true, okay?"
Rowan immediately turned back to her son. "What did you do?"
"Nothing… nothing…" Rowan pinned her son with a dry knowing glare and he crumpled like a precariously stacked house of cards. "Okay, you remember Jeremy? Jeremy Stickle?"
"The kid who never showers. Yes. I remember. I had to fabric wash the couch after you two had a gaming session."
He was known around the school as Jeremy Stinkle, which Nahele should have told her before he brought him over.
"Yeah, him. There… well there was a little situation, and I… uhm… he liked this girl…"
Oh, she could see where this was going.
"And she didn't like him…"
"She likes you."
"Yeah, except… you know he's my friend so I kept shrugging her off. And I kept like… talking him up but like… she wasn't interested and then… well… she had a bad day and… she's my friend too, and she was crying…"
Aww her poor kid. He had somehow managed to inherit her bleeding heart.
"Anyway, I was comforting her and then she kissed me and… we're kind of dating and Jeremy found out…"
"Right, so solidarity, his mom hates you."
Which was fair because that's what she would do too, but she wouldn't be lying to other moms about it. She'd just glare at the kid and make him uncomfortable.
"Well she didn't like me before that. They're like well off and she thinks I'm beneath him…"
"She said that?" Rowan asked.
She must have looked hostile because her kid shook his head really quickly. "No, no, just a feeling."
That still wasn't nice but she couldn't go at someone just cause her kid got a feeling. She needed more concrete evidence.
"She uh… she kind of turned the other moms against me," he said.
"Alright, well don't you worry about it," Rowan said. "Just help me get these last boxes in and then go to your classes. It'll be okay?"
Nahele nodded and together they took the boxes to her table. She got half a hug from him before he ran out and then she was on her own.
None of the other moms were excited to see her, of course, and now she knew why. But she had been the Ice Queen for all of high school and this was going to be no different.
She started by unloading the first box. This one was specifically done to the rigorous specifications of the PTA. No allergens. No Sugar. Tasteless. But you know, for those vegan kids these would be good.
As she was putting them out on their trays the moms came over.
"Oh… so you made the cookies," the lead mom said.
Rowan already knew who this was, Adelaide Stickle, Jeremy's mom. Right so this was a show down. If she showed weakness, they'd pounce on her like a pack of lions.
Rowan straightened and forced one of her frostier smiles onto her face. "Yes, you told me to make cookies, I made cookies."
Adelaide took on, took a bite and then gagged.
"These are disgusting we can't sell these. All you needed to do was make simple chocolate chip cookies and you couldn't even do those right?"
"Oh," Rowan said quickly. She bent down to put up the second box she had brought. "That's fine, I figured those wouldn't do well so I brought these to sell when you weren't looking."
Adelaide's face fell as she stared at the box.
"How uh… fortuitous…"
"Yeah I like to plan ahead," Rowan said with a smile. "If that is all?"
That was a clear sign for her and her little gang of moms to leave.
Was it bad that they all looked somewhat a like? They were all in button up blouses in different colors and some version of capri pants, also in different pastels. They all had pearls around their necks, glittering watches, golden bangle and plenty of rings.
They all had different degrees of the bob, each styled in a straightened do.
Rowan had a similar vibe, except she looked like them if they had married a super star.
Thank the lord for Wo Fat's advice on the wearing an obviously super expensive brand name to intimidate people. She had definitely beat them all out in the wardrobe style today.
But Adelaide didn't know she was beaten. She opened her mouth again, probably to tell her that her secondary box of cookies wasn't good enough.
She was going to shit brick when she found out that Rowan had three different types of cookies and a cupcake tree.
Adelaide went to sass Rowan but Rowan wasn't having it. She simply raised her hand to stop the poison from spewing out of her mouth.
"No, no, okay, shush, shush it Karen," she said.
"My name is Adelaide."
"Yeah I know I just don't care," Rowan said with a growl and the other moms gasped. "Look, we all know that all this hostility is just because my kid snatched up a girl your kid was interested in. I'd like to be sorry but maybe, maybe if your kid didn't have the personal hygiene of a raccoon, he'd get more chicks."
Adelaide's eyes had gone wide, her mouth dropped. The other moms with her took a step away. Clearly expecting an explosion of sorts.
"Sorry, that was harsh," Rowan said and Adelaide almost smiled like Rowan was going to apologize for the comment. "To the raccoons. They're actually quite clean creatures. Your kid is more like Oscar the Grouch. You know, smells like a trash can."
"How dare you!"
"Hey, it's not my fault he doesn't shower. I'm sure if he did, the girl would have picked him because otherwise he seems like a pretty chill kid," she said. "But picking a fight with me over cookies at a bake sale because your little crotch goblin can't get a girl and mine can is a little petty, don't you think?"
"Oh, you think you're so smart…"
"I'm sorry, did I use too many big words? Has to be tough… you know… having the IQ of an unscented hand soap. Good thing you married rich huh… at least you'll have all that money when your looks fade."
Adelaide's mouth dropped once again. She stuttered through half of a what did you just say but Rowan was done.
"The conversation is over. No need to try to catch up. I won. You stay at your table I'll stay at mine and if you're really that upset about it, we can duke it out once the bake sale's done," Rowan said. "Okay? Can we do that, can we be civil for the rest of the day or is that going to be too hard for you?"
Adelaide was seething. Absolutely seething. Rowan could practically see the steam blowing out of that woman's ears. She had clearly never been talked to the way Rowan talked to her.
"Oh, you think you're such a big shot…"
"No, I don't," Rowan said. "I just think I'm a better person than you. Which, from this display, is not hard because you're literally about to throw down on some high school beef that isn't even yours. Come on now, is this really important in the grand scheme of things?"
"I don't know about you, but I care very much about my kid's happiness," Adelaide cried. "Though we should have expected this from your son."
"Excuse me? What does that mean?"
"That your kid doesn't know how to keep his mitts off things that don't belong to him."
"Uhm… excuse me, this is a teenage girl, another living person. She doesn't belong to anyone but herself," Rowan said. "And, probably most importantly here, Nahele is not a thief!"
"Oh, he's not?" Adelaide asked like she was surprised and little bit like she was expect that and Rowan had walked into a trap. "Isn't that how you met him? He stole your husband's car?"
Yep she had walked into a trap.
"He was a street kid! He was hungry!" she cried. "What would you know about suffering and starvation, Miss. Silverspoon."
"Well, it's clearly a habit he hasn't broken," she said with a sniff. "All of us have noticed things missing every time you kid comes over. With my husband being a very respected lawyer and the amount of witnesses we have I'm sure we can press enough charges to keep him in juvie for the rest of high school or at the very least expelled."
Rowan's eyes widened. This bitch was threatening her son.
"Are you seriously threatening to press charges on a kid simply because your kid didn't get a girl. In high school? Because he refuses to shower the BO off of himself?"
Adelaide just smiled at her and Rowan laughed, finally coming around the little table.
"Wow, you know… you're going to learn just how much I care about my kid's happiness."
Adelaide just looked her up and down. "What?" she asked, just as Rowan tackled her to the ground.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Steve had been having a rough day.
It opened with his kid getting a picture of man strung up like a prize catch at the marina. He had sent Grover and Kono on that one.
He and Danny got a call from Kamekona that said it was an emergency but when he got there, it was just Flippa and the rest of Kamekona's workers protesting his unfairness.
He had reminded Kamekona that a labour dispute was a lot like a spare tire. It was not an emergency.
Then he got called in on a second murder and he realized that he was going to be very busy today. Which meant he wouldn't be able to swing by the bake sale to check on his wife, or potentially bring more baked goods over, because Rowan, the little baker, had made extras just in case.
The body that had washed up on shore was Leia Rozen. She had been hit over the head, and no in a way that said she fell of a boat and hit her head, or she fell off a cliff. She had been hit with something hard, over the head, and then her body had been dumped. Probably 3-4 days before.
This was clearly a murder.
They found out that Leia had been a volunteer at Kalaupapa, the leprosy Colony they had on the island. So, he let Danny work the dead big-game hunter who had been after a great while, and he and Chin went to Kalaupapa with Eric to figure out what happened to Leia Rozen.
It took some digging but this all went back to Leia's grandfather. He had been a survivor of a concentration camp and the two of them had been close. She had come to Hawaii looking for someone very specific.
A Nazi, who had forced her grandfather to choose which of his siblings would live. And if he couldn't choose, he'd kill all three of them. So, her grandfather killed one of his own siblings to save at least two of them and the guilt never went away. And really, how could it?
This Nazi, Tomas Sauer, had gotten away back then and Leia had gone all over the world to the Nazi Sympathizer locations along their escape route to try and find where this man had gone and what identity he had assumed.
Hawaii had been her last stop, not because she had died here, but because she had found him.
What they were thinking happened was that she confronted Allen Smith, who was Tomas Sauer, and his daughter, who was the sheriff for Kalaupapa, had caught her and killed her.
The problem was they had showed Alana Smith a photo of what Tomas might have looked like when aged up, not knowing it was her father. It was all she needed to pack him up and run before Steve and Chin figured out who they were really looking for.
Now she and her father were on the run. Chin was worried that he was going to get away again, but Steve had a plan.
What threw off his plan was that Duke called in that his wife had been arrested. And then Sandy confirmed it and that was him heading to the precinct to figure out what the hell had happened.
When he got there his eyes found her right away. She was in the bullpen, at least, handcuffed to a desk. Well, at least they hadn't put her in the cell.
She turned, saw him, and a wince crossed her beautiful features. She had a cut lip, her hair was out of place, her mascara running, and there were scratches down her neck.
What the fuck had happened to her? Had she resisted arrest?
Duke got to him before he could get to Rowan.
"I'm sorry to have to…"
"Yeah, yeah, can you just tell me what she did?" Steve asked cutting him off.
"HPD was called to Kukui high school to respond to a disturbance. There we found Rowan and she had… basically she was beating up another mom at the bake sale," he said.
She what?!
"She had done some real damage, and well, she was taken in for assault. Some of the other moms came forward to say that she had been goaded into it, but they've all changed their tunes since Mr. Stickle has decided to press charges."
Right so Rowan had no doubt been goaded into this, and once they decided to press charges they talked to the witnesses and got them to change their testimony. Probably with fear not money. If he knew Rowan, knew what she was like, she had butt heads with the queen bee of the school PTA.
"Okay, thank you," he whispered. "Could I… uh… could I talk to her?"
"Sure thing," Duke said and left Steve to go deal with his wife.
He walked over to her and she wouldn't even look at him. She looked like a chastised child.
"Ro… just… Ro why? I… just walk me through why you thought that this," eh cried indicating to her. "That this was a good idea?"
She turned her face up to him and saw that she was crying and this was new. Because Rowan had done this before and she hadn't cared at all.
He knew the second he saw those tears that this was about someone else.
"Do you know if Danny picked up Nahele?" she asked instead of answering his questions.
"Yeah, Danny has Nahele," he said. "What happened Rowan? Why did you do this?"
Cause there was no point in thinking that she didn't. Rowan always threw down when she needed to. The question was why did she think she needed to.
"She… she threatened Nahele, Steve," she whispered. "Said that they were going to say things went missing when he was over at their houses and they were going to press charges."
"So what? You want her to press charges on you instead?"
"I unno, Steve I just… I saw red…"
Steve nodded because he understood. He wasn't too happy they threatened their kid. Nahele was not a thief… anymore.
"Okay, I'm going to see what I can do, but I need you to do a favour for me."
Rowan sniffed, but couldn't swipe at her eyes, so went about wiping them for her. "Sure?"
"I need you to call your brother."
"Oh Steven, I'm in the middle of a police precinct, I can't call in a hit here."
Steve's eyes widened and then turned to the cops around them that had all kind of stopped to stare at her. "She's joking," he said. "Sorry. She's joking, I swear. I'm sorry."
They all exchanged glances before heading back to whatever they were doing before Rowan's outburst.
"No you idiot," he hissed. "I need to ask him a favour, okay?"
"You could call him yourself, Steven," she said and he nodded.
"He doesn't like it if I'm not calling him about you," he said but she shook her head.
"My phone has been confiscated. You'll have to call him."
She could have booted up her access on his phone but she had a point. He just didn't want to use one of his favours for this.
"Alright, I'm going to call him," he said. "You just sit tight."
"Like I'm really going to go anywhere, Steven," she said indicating to the handcuffs around her wrists. Like she couldn't void right out of them.
Still Steve lovingly ruffled her hair as he pulled his phone out and then excused himself to go make the call.
He chose to make the call outside because he figured it would be safer. Wo Fat picked up on the fourth ring.
"This better be good," he growled almost sleepily into the phone. Huh, maybe he should have checked what time it was in Japan before he called.
"Hey, yeah, uh… I had a question to ask."
Steve usually opened with She's fine but she wasn't this time so he didn't think it was a good idea to lie to him.
Wo Fat paused, clearly picking up that the greeting wasn't the usual one he was used to.
But eventually he said: "Okay."
"If I gave you a picture of a person who is literally on the run right now. Would you or Sandy be able to track this person down?"
"Probably. Hey, quick question, why is Sandy reporting that my sister got arrested? You two arguing again?"
"I don't do that anymore and you know it!" Steve thundered and when Wo just laughed, he sighed. He really did not like being the butt of her brothers-in-law's jokes. "She assaulted a PTA mom that threatened Nahele. I'm going to deal with it, okay? Can you help me or not?"
"Yeah. You send the photo over and I'll put out some feelers, and get Kong on tracking TSA. I'll keep you posted on how it goes, okay?" When Steve gave him an okay, he asked: "Do you need me to send someone down? Whacking a PTA mom is like, easy money for some people."
"No, Wo, I don't need that…"
"Right well, might I recommend you get Con down there?" Wo offered. "He uh… if you remember… was very useful the last time you had one of your team in a pinch like this."
Steve paused to think about it. Really think about it.
Actually. That was a very good idea.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Steve let himself into the interrogation room that Mr. and Mrs. Stickle had been put in. He was obviously a very angry man, having been put into an interrogation room while Rowan had been up front. He was not happy that he wasn't getting the VIP treatment that someone like him should have gotten.
That meant when Steve came in, he got to his feet and then, before Steve could say anything, he raised a hand to him.
"Let me stop you right there. I know exactly who you are Commander McGarrett. And I know that you being here is a conflict of interest and harassment, and yes, we will file for that too."
Steve nodded. Great. Just what he thought the man would say.
"Your wife incited a fight," Steve said, though to be fair, Rowan really had won. The woman had a broken nose and the black eyes to go with it, by the looks of it she had chipped her front teeth, and apparently Rowan had ripped out some of her hair too.
"Your wife incited a fight and threatened my son…"
"Your son is a thief. Silverware went missing from my house after he was there, jewelry and other expensive, easy to swipe items disappeared from other homes he's been in too. That is hardly a coincidence."
"Yeah, yes, actually, it's called circumstantial evidence. So, unless you got proof my kid did it, it's not going to fly in the court of law you keep threatening me with,"' Steve snapped crossing his arms over his chest. "And how much do you want to bet, that if I interrogate the other moms, threaten to charge them with conspiracy, they'll tell me that you pressured them into making all of that up?"
"Well you can do that, but it won't help you when I sue you. Everything you'll have gathered will be considered inadmissible as, once again, this is a conflict of interest!" he had started off quite calm but shouted the last three words at Steve.
Steve just stared at him down.
"You're beat Commander. Admit it. Your wife is going to jail, your kid is next, and then I'm going to sue the two of you for all you got. I'm going to ruin you, do you understand?"
"See, shouldn't have done that," Steve said. "It's never smart to threaten the kids."
He went to the door and then paused. "This is your last chance. If I open this door there's no going back."
Mr. Stickle just scoffed at him, so Steve shrugged and opened the door.
"Right, they wanna play hardball," he called and then Sin Nombre was brushing past him.
Steve was obviously very impressed because put the man in a nice suit, a pair of glasses and brush that hair back and he very much looked the part of a lawyer.
"Hello, my name is Indigo Montoya with Coleman and Golde. I understand that you think you have the right to press charges against my client?"
As he said that he sat down at the table, put a folder down in front of himself and then clasped his hands on top of it. He then turned a patient smile to the two people in front of him.
"She attacked me!" Mrs. Stickle wailed.
"Right."
"And we plan to pursue this to the fullest extent of the law. Clearly Mrs. McGarrett is a hazard to society!" Mr. Stickle added being certain to glare directly at Steve when he said it.
"Unfortunate." Sin Nombre said dryly. And then he opened the folder. "Alright, well this is transcripts of a text chat your wife is in, talking about how she planned to goad a fight between herself and my client. I also have witness statements that say she basically needled Mrs. McGarrett until the woman hit back, which is more than grounds for a dismissal of this case."
"Now wait a second…"
"The transcripts also prove that you wife is a vindictive cunt, but I don't think the courts will care about that," Sin Nombre said with a grin.
Mrs. Stickle gasped with outrage but her husband didn't move to defend her. Instead he just glared at Sin Nombre.
"If you think you can badger me into dropping this, you have another thing coming, I can still sue…"
"Yes, but you might be a bit too busy for that," Sin Nombre said with a patronizing wince.
"Thanks to a snitch at your firm, here is a copy of your prenuptial agreement. Stating here that if you're caught cheating your wife gets everything," he said putting it in front of them.
"Yes, and it also says that she's caught cheating she gets nothing."
"Exactly."
They clearly didn't understand what that meant, but Sin Nombre was smiling.
"Here is rest of that data dump from her phone. She's been having affairs with her son's friends. If you flip to the 10th page, you'll find out that the real reason she's mad at the McGarretts is because Nahele turned down her advances."
Steve nearly chocked on his own salvia. Wait a second… what? Oh, best believe he was going to make sure everyone knew about this.
Mrs. Stickle actually squeaked in horror and her husband turned to her with a big grin.
"I actually have you not only cheating, but soliciting a minor. A lot of statutory rape and child pornography in those texts."
She reached across the table to slap him but Sin Nombre easily deflected her. He didn't even have to look up.
Mr. Strickle just stared at her. "Wow, just… wow," he said to her as he got up. He took the reems of evidence he'd need and headed for the door. "From now on Addy, you're on your own. Good luck cleaning up this mess yourself."
And then he was gone.
"I'm not gonna lie. Without your husband's support you're basically dead in the water. No point suing because we've got you on entrapment. We've already taken the liberty of forwarding these texts to the other moms, you know the ones you listed as witnesses. As it turns out, they don't want to help you anymore, now that they know you've been preying on their sons. They've recanted all their statements for the second time today, and told the police that you were trying to get attacked by Rowan so you could have her arrested and then sue her for god measure. And now, now you have a big divorce coming your way. That's a lot against you."
She had started sobbing under the weight of everything. Ugly crying, which might have been the only kind she could do with the damage Rowan had done to her face. Even Steve was impressed. Sin Nombre really knew what he was doing.
"It's tragic really, but I can help you," he said with a Cheshire grin on his face.
"You can."
He nodded solemnly. "Of course."
He sounded so sure of himself that even Mrs. Stickle was suspicious.
"How?"
Sin Nombre opened up the folder again, looked at everything and then said: "Well for starters I have proof of embezzlement and polygamy."
"Wait… Polygamy… he… he…"
"He has another wife on the mainland. She's recent though. Or at least the kid they have together is." Mrs. Stickle actually swore, she cursed her dirt bag of a husband while Sin Nombre just stared at her placidly. "And I have proof of it, too."
"You do?"
"I do."
"Well then…'
"Ah!" Sin Nombre said cutting her off. "I'm not giving you shit until you drop the charges on my client."
"But… look what she did to my face!"
"Woman," Sin Nombre said sternly. "Entrapment and solicitation of a minor… on her kid. She can sue you for everything you got and if your husband gets his way there won't be anything for her to even get."
She just stared at him.
"Ma'am, let's be frank here, can I be frank?" he asked. She nodded and he nodded too. "You're the type of woman who is accustomed to her lifestyle. And you're gonna lose it. My firm can help you from losing it all. We can make sure that the level you drop is minimal and not right to the bottom. But we're not going to help you, Ma'am. Not unless we get something first."
"Fine," she said with a weary sigh and Steve let his breath out.
It had worked. It had really worked.
Sin Nombre pushed a contact forward, basically stating that she would not pursue Rowan for any legal or personal charges and then he left her in there to look everything in that file over.
Once they were out Sin Nombre took his glasses off and then smiled at Steve.
"See, easy peasy," he said. "Though uh… you got a kid with morals, eh. I read the transcript over. His two objections were that she was married and that was his friend's mom. He even tried let her down easy, it was cute. He's a real gentleman that boy. I'd say you guys did it, but I'd like to think he got it from Wo."
Wow, not even himself. He was thought he got it from Wo? Yeah, Steve wasn't even going to say anything, not since he got Rowan off like he said he would. And he didn't ask for one of Steve's favours in return.
"That was uh… that was impressive in there. How uh… how did you know what to do?"
"Well, probably because before all this Sin Nombre stuff, I was going to be a lawyer," he said. "Guess I just remember everything I learned."
Now that was news to him. Sin Nombre had a life before all of this? A normal one? One where he was going to do something relatively normal and good with his life. Though lawyer was treading a thin line between good and evil, they were pretty slimy people.
Made him wonder what had happened to turn him into this.
"Wow, so… you were… you were really going to be a lawyer?"
"Almost had my law degree too," he said. "Doesn't matter now though. Can't go back to that anymore."
"Well… why not? You were pretty good in there!" Steve said. Sin Nombre's smile had faded and he would no longer look at him.
"I'mma… uh… I'm gonna get my sister out of the bullpen, see about her sending me back to Cali," he said. "Uh… a lawyer will actually come for the vindictive cunt, by the way, they're on the way."
Steve nodded, figured he'd let the two siblings have a bit of a moment before he went and collected his wife. So, to give them the time he called Wo.
The man picked up on the first ring with a quick: "So did it get settled?"
"Yeah Sin Nombre did great," he said.
"Good, so I don't need to whack anyone?"
"No Wo, it's fine. You got anything for me?"
"Sure do. According to Kong they're currently heading to Ash Fork, Arizona, I'll even send you the hotel info he tracked down," he said.
Steve smiled. See, he wasn't going to break his promise. That Nazi wasn't going to go free.
But his wife would and once he got her and their kid home, he was going to fly to Arizona to make sure that someone who actually deserved to go to jail, actually went to jail.